Winter Olivia & Hali Hammad

Category: Stories and Essays

Yesterday you asked me for forgiveness. I grew up, became a woman, became a mom without you. I went through all my childhood milestones without you. But none the less I forgave you. I told you that all of that was in the past. The only thing that mattered now was today and the future.
You cried over the phone and told me you loved me, and I had no idea how much it meant to hear those words. You kept repeating that; “you have no idea, you have no idea how it makes me feel to hear you say that. I love you. I love you. I love you.” Click.
That was the last time we spoke. I went out that night to celebrate my birthday with my boyfriend as we had discussed the day before. You told me you were happy that I was going out and that I should enjoy my birthday. You said “Happy Birthday.” 28 birthdays had passed, this was the first one you got to say Happy Birthday. This one was special. 29, the last year in my twenties and I had finally started a meaningful/healing relationship with my long lost biological dad.
We were talking every day, sometimes three times a day. I knew you were going through a tough time. I made sure to answer every single one of your calls. I thought I was making a difference in your life. I figured I was helping you get through your issues. I knew you were in pain. I knew you were suffering. The morning before you ended your suffering you texted me a picture from the post office of a box that you said held my inheritance. I thought nothing of it. I thought that you were just giving me this gift as a birthday present. I didn’t put two and two together…
You left me here, alone to pick up the pieces. The first thought that goes through my mind is that I cannot imagine the pain you must have been feeling to decide to take your life; that the pain you felt was so intense that you felt that if you just stopped breathing that you would finally have some peace, then I feel it. I feel the pain you felt because by deciding to end your life you did not stop the pain, you just passed it on to me. You left me wondering what could I have said or done differently to let you know that you mattered to me. I tried to be there for you as much as I could daddy. I thought that I was lifting your spirits through your rough time. Were our talks not enough? Was it something I said or didn’t say?
I am angry with you papi. You hurt me by doing this. You left me with so many unanswered questions that I deserved to have answered after all this time.
Did I cross your mind when you decided to sit on the floor against your bed and put my grandfather’s pistol to your head? Did you know the damage it would do to me? We healed one wound I had carried for a very long time, only for you to break my heart all over again in a permanent way.
I love you and pray for your soul daddy. I pray you found peace. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.

If you are contemplating ending your pain please remember: SOMEONE OUT THERE NEEDS YOU TO KEEP LIVING.

1-800-273-8255 Call the National Suicide hotline

or text LIFE to 61222.

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I had sold all my worldly possessions and had moved to the island of Puerto Rico in the attempt to break free from my boyfriend. He wouldn’t give up on me but I kept pushing him away. I knew he had just signed up for school and wouldn’t be able to move with me to the island and I figured we would breakup because distance has a way of doing that to a relationship. It didn’t work. He was in there for the long haul. I was mean to him and yet he stayed. I finally told him I was over it, and I stopped taking his calls. I was ready to move on. I loved him. He was a good man. We were just too different. With his hand tattoos and criminal background, we were just…different.

“Winter, you just need to find a guy who is on your level,” my best friend who I spoke to multiple times a day on the phone said. “You know, a guy who wears a suit to work. Someone who could take care of you and your girls. A guy who drives a nice car and has his shit together.” She was right, I needed someone who looked good on paper, who has a degree, and has a good job with benefits. These qualities were more consistent and more in line with where I wanted to be in life.

When I met my boyfriend, he was living in his cousin’s finished basement, didn’t have a car, and worked at McDonald’s. People were so confused when we got together. It was confusing to people how the high school virgin / Army Veteran fell for the hometown drug dealer. Minus his former drug dealing, he had all the qualities I wanted in a man. He was sweet, loyal, and treated my children as his own. He didn’t have a baby mama, and he was so smart, despite all this I was still was hung up on his past.

Life has taught me one lesson, and ladies I’m talking to you here, if there is one thing you take from this post it’s this, listen up: A DOG IS A DOG IS A DOG. A man either comes to you faithful or he doesn’t. You cannot teach an old dog new tricks. Trust me, I know. If he’s a cheater, he will always be. If he’s crossed the line once, he will do it again. The thing about lines are, once you cross them, they become easier and easier to cross every time. My ex-boyfriend was a diamond in the rough and it would take some polishing, but I knew there was a gem in there. During our relationship, he got his own apartment, got his CDL, quit McDonalds and got a good paying job. He had even signed up for another trade school. He was on his way. But I got tired of putting him together, tired of molding him into the man I wanted him to be. I wanted to go out and find a new doll that already came assembled. So, I was on the prowl to catch a good one. But my options were limited, I was living on an island, and the town I lived in was a very old town. I was the youngest adult in my neighborhood and the youngest mom at my kid’s school. The only way to find a new boo my age would be to go to San Juan on the weekend and hit the clubs, but most of the people who party there were tourists so that wasn’t a good idea.

Then one night as I was scrolling my Twitter timeline (TL), it hit me. A tweet retweeted on to my timeline that referenced Drake’s song saying, “Started From a DM Now We’re Here.” In the four pictures allotted in the tweet it showed the Direct Message between a guy and a girl who were strangers once and by the fourth picture they’re married! I’m a realist and a pessimist by nature so I wasn’t expecting to find my future husband on Twitter, but it was a starting point to find a new boo thing.

There was a guy who follows me on twitter who was mutual friends with all my friends back home from high school. I went to public high school and he had gone to Catholic high school. Therefore, even though I knew who he was, I had never actually met him. He would “sub tweet” me on the timeline every once in a while, to see if I would bite but I had a boyfriend so I never took the bait. Based off info I had gathered from the TL for a few years of mutually following each other I knew he had a good job working for the government (Check), graduated from college (Check), and played college football (don’t really care but bonus check I guess.) This guy was six foot five (Check), and was well liked by our peers (heart emoji). Oh, yeah and he liked red heads apparently (Bitcchhhh I got this J).

I thought, maybe I’ll DM him and see where it goes. After he responded we exchanged numbers and began talking on the phone all day every day. He was fascinated by my stories and I enjoyed talking to someone who had the same interests as I did and generally the same views as me. The conversations were fun and light. I looked forward to our daily conversations and our way of flirting with each other on the TL via subtweet. I got so wrapped up with this Twitter love affair that I began ignoring my ex-boyfriend’s texts. He would text me and tell me he still loved me and I would rudely respond back to him as if our year and a half long relationship meant nothing. I would tell my new twitter boo about how he was texting me and he would eagerly engage in his slander. Twitter boo would even bring up my ex to trash talk him, when I wasn’t even thinking about him (red flag number 1.)

“Your ex followed me on twitter today,” my twitter boo told me one day over the phone. In my head, I found that REALLY odd because my ex wasn’t the type. I called my ex and asked him why he followed that guy and he said, “I didn’t follow that nigga, he followed me! So I followed him back to see what’s up.” In my heart I believed my ex and I knew that my new twitter boo had lied and started wondering why he would do this (red flag number 2.)

Then, after the Super Bowl my new boo called and said that he had seen my ex at a Super Bowl party. He then went on to say my ex had said he was going to surprise me by flying out to see me when he had a break from school. Again in my head, I said to myself, this doesn’t sound like my ex. He wouldn’t tell his business like that (red flag number 3.) I went along with it and called my ex to tell him I didn’t really want to see him and he would be wasting his money on coming to see me because there was no point. We were over.

I think what I liked the most about this twitter boo was the fact that he would sit there and gossip on the phone with me non-stop. SIREN SOUNDS. Why was I missing all these red flags?

My Twitter boo would also send me a text that read, “Check your Paypal,” and there would just be money in my account, for no reason. He just wanted to surprise me.

“So, he just sends you money out of the blue?” my best friend said over the phone. Low-key she was jealous.

“Yeah sometimes he will just tweet on the timeline ‘Check ya Paypal Bae’ but really he’s subtweeting me. I go check my Paypal and there’s money in there!”

“He is a keeper, Winter, he hasn’t even met you and he spoils you already. That’s the type of guy you need.”

Soon there was talk of a fly out. Now I don’t know if you are familiar with Twitter culture, but on twitter there is a tale as old as time. People meet on twitter, engage in some online flirting eventually someone “Flies out” the other party and it almost ALWAYS ends up in drama for all of the twitter community to read. But I wasn’t worried about that. This was my boo, right? He was handsome, he was successful, he was educated, and he treated me like a princess. The perfect guy, the whole package. I was with it! I even sent him some nudes, which was something I only did with my ex-boyfriend because I trusted him. But nowadays people were sending nudes like they were trading cards so I figured why not? I trusted him, we had been having a long-distance relationship for months. (Don’t worry my face wasn’t in them.)

I agreed to him flying out to come see me. He set the date, Valentine’s Day Weekend…How romantic.

The day had arrived and I drove to San Juan to pick up my Twitter boo. I was so nervous! I would finally get to meet this great guy! Even though he would tell me he was in love with me, I wouldn’t say it back because I wanted to know if it was the real deal when we were actually to meet IRL. But nonetheless I was very much in Like with him. As I pulled up to the airport my heart was pounding and the dead butterflies in my stomach came back to life. My head was full of thoughts. “I hope this goes well.” Even though we had never facetimed (I was team iPhone and he was team Android), it never crossed my mind that the person I had such an intimate long distance relationship with wasn’t the person he said he was.

And then I saw him. My heart kind of sank a bit. A tall, brown skinned, heavy set man was not hard to miss. Immediately I began internally panicking. My thoughts went a little something like this: “There is no way those photos he sent me or his twitter avi were recent! Why is he so big? Well he is wearing a heavy jacket, maybe that’s it.”

All ready I was turned off and wanted him to turn around and get back on that plane. His clean shaven blemish-less face I had seen on twitter was riddled in razor bumps, he was overweight, I mean he was big. And his walk, ugh… He walked as if someone was pulling his toes in the opposite direction. He was swaggarless and just not attractive to me.

I opened my trunk and he threw down his bag and hoisted me up by my waist and spun me around, I guess in an attempt to be romantic, but I was skeeved out. The words were loud and clear in my mind, Ew, don’t touch me. And then he went to plant a kiss on my lips. I have never been more happy to have ninja skills than I was in that moment. I wiggled my way out of his grasp and turned my head. We got in the car and he kept smiling at me as we made our two-hour journey back to my house. Immediately he could tell something was off.

“I thought you would be more excited. Is everything okay?” Me, never wanting to be the bad guy, said that I was just tired from the trip.

What was supposed to be our romantic first date ended up being super awkward. I just wasn’t into him. And he was either in denial or was just not getting the hints I was dropping. His final night there I had to tell him. I just wasn’t attracted to him. We sat at a restaurant in the heart of Old San Juan. Music was playing, people were dancing, candles were lit. He would just sit there enamored by me. Like how a puppy looks at you when you are holding a bone. Confessing his love for me and telling me that he was planning on taking me ring shopping the next day. (Super Red Flag-this guy wanted to lock me down right away. In my experience whenever a man tries to lock you down right away- it usually means he’s hiding a flaw and wants to lock you down before you figure it out.) But it was too late: I was already not interested. I hadn’t yet found the character flaw, but I wasn’t willing to stick around and find out.

“So, I have something to tell you,” I said to him awkwardly. “Yes love?” (gag emoji) he replied, completely unaware that I was about to hurt his feelings.

“I have to be honest. And I’m saying this in the nicest way possible, but I think I’m not as into this as you are. I hope you can understand I think you’re a great guy, but we just don’t click.”

His face looked like he had just watched the Titanic movie for the first time. “What do you mean? I love you. I want to give you the world.”

In my head I started cursing, and reminding myself not to be the bad guy and break this man’s ego. “Well, I am just not into it. I’m sorry.”

He continued to pry and I eventually had to tell him the truth. “I’m just not into you, bro!” The words came out of my mouth a little louder than I had anticipated but I was already over the conversation and wanted him to get the point.

Hand on the Bible, this man began to cry. I felt so bad.

“Why aren’t you into me? What is it? Did I do something to you? I’ve been nothing but nice to you. I bought you nice things, I sent you money. What could you possibly not like about me? I am an educated black man, you don’t find men like me easily.” (BARF)

“First of all, I never asked you for anything. Second, whenever you would send me money, or gifts I would adamantly say that you shouldn’t have done so. And third, who do you think you are?”

We walked across the cobble stone streets back to our Airbnb in silence.

“Just tell me what it is? I have to know,” he pleaded one last time as we walked into the Airbnb rental.

I had to be the bad guy. “I am just not attracted to you. I am sorry. I liked you over the phone but in person I just don’t like what I see. Okay?”

He was so offended and hurt. He walked, went into the other room, and put his Beats by Dr. Dre headphones on full blast. I can only assume it was for me to hear Ellie Golding’s “Love me Like You Do” and change my mind. It backfired because I was laughing so hard in my head. I had found the character flaw. This man was a Fuck Boy. For everyone reading, a fuck boy is a boy who can’t handle the truth. Someone who thinks that they are God’s gift to women and is entitled your affection. He did not get what he had wanted and now was throwing a tantrum.

What else could I do? Naturally I unlocked my phone and opened my twitter app only to see that my Twitter boo was throwing himself a public pity party for the whole Twitterverse to see. At my request, we had kept our relationship a secret, our local twitter community knew we had both met new boos but no one suspected that we were actually talking about each other. The twitter community rallied behind him, tweeting to him to “Keep your head up” and “Fuck that Ho.” I was annoyed. Even though these people did not know who he was talking about it still got under my skin to read. With every tweet he would glare up at me, a mixture of hurt and anger in his eyes. It was actually very hard to hold in my laughter at that point. There was a 6’5 grown man sitting on the couch with Beats by Dr. Dre headphones on with Love Me Like You Do blasting through, furiously typing away and angrily looking at me every time he sent out a tweet. He looked like a child.

I had fallen asleep and he awoke me by running his hand through my hair, my eyes shot open because again I was skeeved out. “Fuck that. You think I’m fat right? I really think you are being shallow. You like our talks and we vibe, you cannot deny that, can you just give me a chance?”

I struggled internally with myself. Was I shallow? I did like him up until the point I laid eyes on him. Maybe I was being too harsh on him?

I reluctantly agreed to give him another shot, he told me that he would get into the gym and in a few months, he would be back in shape. “Okay, we’ll see,” I said sheepishly.

He went back home and we fell back into the routine of talking on the phone and texting. I would forget how he looked in person at times. The months rolled by and he flew out to see me yet again. I trekked out to San Juan once more with an open mind only to feel duped again. He looked even bigger!

He again tried to bribe the love out of me by taking me shopping. I told him he shouldn’t spend his money on me but he insisted. We walked passed a jewelry store and he grabbed my hand and pulled me in. “Pick one out,” he said with the biggest smile. I looked around and told him I didn’t like any of them but this was my nice way of saying I didn’t want a ring from him.

That night at dinner he could tell that I had been distant the whole time he was there. And once again I had to have the awkward conversation as to why I wasn’t into him.

He was offended, and not in the sense of “You hurt my feelings.” He was offended in the sense of “Bitch, how dare you, do you not know that I’m Top five dude in my area” type of offended.

“Well I’ll have you know that you are missing out. You remember two weeks ago I said I had some life changing news but I wouldn’t tell you what it was?” he frantically said.

“Okay?” I responded confused about where he was going with that statement.

“Well, you know my best friend Chris? The one with millionaire parents? Yeah well they just wrote me in their will, when they die, I am going to be getting 2 million dollars! That could have been the life I would have given you.”

The face I made must have said what I was thinking but he was so enraged that I didn’t love him he didn’t notice. “So what? Now you’re trying to buy me on the promise of a will that you may get in the future? TUHHHHHH,” I scoffed. Now I was offended. I am entitled to my preferences and he just had to accept that.

He left the island and again threw himself a pity party for all of the TL to see. Months had past and we unfollowed each other. I stayed on my corner of the internet and he stayed on his.

One day, my old Twitter boo and his friends from college went out for drinks at his alma matter and took a picture. They were all ex-college football types who had let themselves go after college. The TL began to roast the picture. On twitter, when someone is getting roasted, everyone else tweets reaction pics or gifs that make the roasting even more fun. So, when someone tweeted, “It looks like BET IT department went out for drinks,” I put up a laughing reaction meme because it was indeed funny because they did actually look like a bunch of overweight nerds out on the town. At that moment the other boys in the photo turned on me. “Bitch don’t be laughing when your selling pussy on back-page! We heard about you!” At that moment, I learned that in true Fuck Boy fashion, my twitter boo had lied on my name. At the time I had just gotten a big disability check from the Veterans Affairs office and had bought a red Mercedes, moved to an island, and bought a GMC Terrain. I never told anyone where the money came from because it was no one’s business, but to outsiders, I was just a stay-at-home mom, so when my twitter boo told them he had found my profile on back-page and that I was a prostitute they believed him. I was enraged! Not only was this a lie, it was such a disgusting lie. I had the reputation of a good girl. That was my reputation in my hometown. This is who I was. With one tweet, it was all destroyed. My DM started ringing, girls I had known since the tenth grade reaching out to me saying things like, “Winter, I really used to look up to you. You’re better than that.” I was so angry! I was even angrier that the TL took his side. Local twitter started out in 2009, with most of my high school class. Throughout the years, most of the female tweeters were bullied and “ran off” twitter by harassment. Before, when I would see this happening to other girls, I would believe the things the guys were saying and watch these girls drop like flies and delete their accounts, only to be continually brought up throughout the years to poke fun of the time they “ran that girl off twitter.” I finally understood that they were bullies. That maybe these were boys who didn’t get what they wanted and were trying to save face. What my ex-boyfriend had been saying this whole time that “Twitter is all fake” was true. I wasn’t about to be ran off twitter. The problem was I had already sent out nudes so I couldn’t even defend myself and tell them the truth. I called my ex and asked him if he had been watching the TL. He told me he hadn’t. My ex asked me what happened and I told him. He was furious. He immediately got on twitter and challenged any man friend or stranger that called me out of my name. And they all grew silent.

There are many things to take away from this post, but the overall message is don’t lose a diamond trying to pick up stones. Even though the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, that lawn is covered in shit.

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